How We Got Here – State of US Health Continued.

Yesterday we dove into some of the how the state of health and fitness in the US came to be so dismal. Today we want to share with you a bunch of resources for you to explore the topic some more. Here are a few of our favorite resources, from books, to articles, to blogs, to videos. Enjoy.

Great recommendations. I also recommend Wheat Belly, The Paleo Solution, and The Primal Blueprint for books and Latest in Paleo and The Paleo Solution for podcasts. And Chow Stalker for food inspiration.

“A new national study has shown that nearly 75 percent of patients hospitalized for a heart attack had cholesterol levels that would indicate they were not at high risk for a cardiovascular event, based on current national cholesterol guidelines.”

http://www.facebook.com/carlottamast Carlotta Mast

I wanted to share two recent articles related to red meat consumption and the controversial Harvard School of Public Health study.

(She is also a crossfitter, and reflects on the “demon that lives at the bottom of the squat”, which obviously lives in mine, too.)

http://twitter.com/lmarie lisa p

Oh I forgot about her! Her book is great, too! My reply to Ali must’ve gotten eaten by the blogmonster, but I also adore modernpaleowarfare.com, nomnompaleo.com and Shane’s blog (obvi).

http://www.facebook.com/shane.upchurch Shane Upchurch

I like http://www.thefoodee.com/ too. They post recipes from hundreds of other paleo blogs so it’s always fresh and you get introduced to other great Paleo blogs.

http://www.crossfitroots.com Nicole Christensen

thanks for sharing these carlotta, good reads!

http://www.crossfitroots.com Nicole Christensen

And the scary part is that the researchers reaction was to make the national cholesterol guidelines LOWER! Your brain needs cholesterol to THINK. Our society is getting dumb…and dumber;).

http://www.crossfitroots.com Nicole Christensen

I haven’t seen a specific study that looks at sugar consumption from alcohol; however, it is sugar! There is a huge relationship to alcohol consumption and the desire to consume more carbohydrates in other forms. I’ll look around and see what I come across.

Amy Santamaria

An interesting connection between sugar and alcohol, and some distinctions about what we mean by “sugar”:

There are a couple different “sugars”, or monosaccharides (single sugar molecules): glucose, fructose, and galactose (in milk). Glucose has its problems, but the body has feedback mechanisms (insulin, blood sugar) to regulate it. With enough glucose, this system gets disregulated, which is bad, but fructose is more dangerous because it doesn’t have these feedback mechanisms in place. Fructose is processed by the liver and preferentially stored as fat there. This leads to lots of problems.

Most sweet foods contain fructose. Table sugar is about half fructose, and so is honey and high fructose corn syrup. Agave is about 90% fructose, and most juices have a ton of fructose. Fructose is also in fruit, but there it comes with a decent dose of fiber, which slows its processing and keeps the doses reasonably low.

Fructose is processed by the liver, just like alcohol. But it doesn’t make you feel drunk (which eventually makes you stop consuming), so you’re free to inflict liver damage without any feedback about the harm you’re doing. That’s what Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease is all about. And it’s becoming increasingly prevalent.

Tracy Phelps Emmanuel

also gotta throw out there a local crossfit/paleo blogger who is freakin’ hilarious – http://paleomg.com/ !